We spend our lives anticipating, and trying to protect against, loss and change. We're afraid of things changing - of losing something we have or not getting something we want.

Recognizing impermanence, the concept that nothing is permanent, is about being present with what is. Everything is transient; it really is. Anything can happen at anytime. And nothing remains the same forever, it's always changing.

At first, this can seem frightening, but really it means that you don't have to live in this protected shield trying to keep things from happening. You don't know what will happen, you can't possibly know, and it's not your place to know. So when things do happen, you accept it.

Here is my personal attempt to challenge my own system of denial and turn toward a more holistic approach, acknowledging the important and intricate connection between our diets and our mood. We are learning so much about our gut health and the connection to everything else in our body. This post will touch the surface of a robust conversation about the microbiome and chronic inflammation in our gut and its relation to our mental health.

I invite you to follow the example of the great teacher of soul, Socrates, and do something concrete to introduce soul into your life. Socrates writes about the Greek therapeia, which means either "care" or "service." He says that it's like the care you'd give a horse on a farm: you feed it, brush it down, exercise it, give it water, and clean its stall. That's the model for therapy of the soul. It's an everyday attention to specific needs, not a cure or repair after things have fallen apart. Its goal is not to make life problem-free, but to give ordinary life the depth and value that come with soulfulness.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)As I've discussed before, trauma can have a devastating effect on the mind and body. EMDR is one of the most widely used and successful treatments for addressing this kind of impact.

However, you do not have to undergo an overtly distressing event for it to affect you. An accumulation of smaller “everyday” or less pronounced events can still be traumatic: conflict in relationships, an emotionally distant parent or partner, racial / sexual discrimination. EMDR can help you overcome experiences like these, which may lead to persistent negative beliefs such as, "I don't belong," "I have to be perfect," or "I'm worthless."

EMDR is related to the process that happens when we dream, known as REM sleep. Learn more about how we activate this bilateral stimulation in the brain.

One of the barriers that keeps us from love is being attracted to unavailable people. A confusing aspect of being attracted to unavailable, commitment-phobic people is that the emotional or sexual chemistry can feel so strong, leading you to accept behavior you’d never tolerate in friends.

The electricity can feel so incredible and rare, you mistake intensity for intimacy. You make compromises you wouldn’t typically consider in order to give the relationship a chance. Still, connection or not, you must take a sober look to determine if someone is truly available for intimacy. Know this:Not everyone you feel a connection with, no matter how mind-blowing, is your soul mate. You can fall for someone who is totally wrong for you, as unfair and confounding as that reality can be.

If someone's unavailable, it's not a healthy relationship.

Look for the signs of unavailable people, such as being in a relationship with someone else, not introducing you to their friends or family, or only being there intermittently for you.

Often people want to find a partner who is unavailable so they can reform them and subconsciously heal the patterns with their parents. But it almost never works, you can't reform an unavailable person. And it won't heal your primary relationship with your parents.

Maybe finding a surrogate parent would. An older woman, for example, who is maternal and able to accept you unconditionally could provide you with a different kind of maternal nurturing than you got. The more you build healthy, safe relationships with people like this, the more open you will be to finding a romantic partner who's capable of loving you.

Perhaps this is a 'safe' relationship for you, in that you don't have to face your deeper fears. Perhaps you have a fear of engulfment – of losing yourself in a relationship – and attaching to a person who doesn't want you sexually is a way of protecting against this fear. Perhaps you have a fear of rejection and you would rather deal with a rejection you know rather than risk a rejection that isn't predictable. By being 'in love' with someone who is emotionally unavailable and already rejecting you, you don't need to deal with the uncertainty that you might fear. Perhaps the pain you know is preferable to you than the pain you fear.